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New robot artist, the "Senseless Drawing Bot"

Although they’re primitive and rudimentary in design (not that I could ever make such a thing) built with household object àla Make, Japanese artists So Kanno and Takahiro Yamaguchi are the creators behind what they call the “Senseless Drawing Bot.” Reflecting the artists’ interests in typography, from the formal (calligraphy) to the recent (graffiti), they built and programmed a robot that merges these forms.

As you can see in the demonstration in the video above, it runs along the wall painting swinging lines in a random and “senseless” manner, but the finished product seems coherent, like there’s actually some kind of logic behind it. But because it wasn’t created by a living, breathing artist, it raises questions about the definition of art and what an artist is. Is the robot the artist or is it the creators and programmer? You can see some behind the scenes making-of photos and videos here.

This project echoes a centerpiece from Alexander McQueen’s Spring/Summer show back in 1999, in which a model’s billowy, white dress gets sprayed by two industrial robots. All this makes me ask: are we witnessing the early development of a Skynet from TERMINATOR where robots will take over the art world?? If so I, for one, welcome our new art robot overlords. Or as this once famous meme goes (paraphrasing a statement uttered by a cyborg in an old Japanese video game for SEGA): All your arts belongs to us.